A1222 For real??

[dooz]

I'd rather buy a second hand Mac Mini or PowerBook. I reckon most others who like OS4 but can't afford an X5000 would too.

Those old Mac computers are very outdated hardware. It cannot match A1222 in any aspect if we go trought hardware specification.

For example:

FrontSideBus:
Mac Mini: 167 MHz
A1222: 400 MHz

Memory subsystem:
Mac Mini: Max 1G 333 MHz DDR SDRAM
A1222: Max 8GB DDR3 800 MHz

Expansion GFX card:
Mac Mini: old limited AGP card
A1222: modern PCI Express 4x with any RadeON cards that has a driver support for AOS4

Disk interface:
Mac Mini: Ultra ATA/100
A1222: SATA  2.6  compliant  controller

Network:
Mac Mini: 1x 10/100 Base-T
A1222: 2x 1000 Base-T

Overall IMHO CPU is better in Mac Mini at the moment since it has Altivec, bigger caches and can range to 1.5 GHz. But CPU in A1222 is a dual core issue in contrast to Mac Mini which has only single core. When AOS4 start to support second core A1222 with P1022 CPU will outperform PowerPC G4 (7447A) CPU in Mac Mini.

However it is really questionable if Mac Mini CPU can be faster than A1222 right now since it has much slower memory, system bus, disc subsystem and in the end bus to graphic card. IMHO it cant right now.

Also you can have only 64 MB GFX RAM on Mac Mini. You can install 2 GB GDDR5 card in A1222. I have Asus R7 250 with 2 GB GDDR5 in my A1222 and it works great.

-Dooz

[dooz]

Some A1222 Tabor motherboard in action on foto with RadeON R7 250 2 GB GDDR5:

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[dooz]

@amiadudeorwat

Unfinished product benchmarks are always not welcome. That kind of benchmarks are wrong and not really represent the real possibilities of new product like A1222.

As a beta tester I also dont see the purpose of premature benchmarks. One day something is slow and not acceptable, then developers do something and you get dramatic increase of performance or new possibilities.  When the product is finished we (both beta testers and regular users) will see the real benchmarks. Even then the process is not finished, we will just have minimal acceptable level for all users.

I also think that FPU issue is overblown. In fact from the tecnical point of view A1222 has a double precision FPU integrated inside P1022 CPU. Its there and it is functional. Software just needs to use it if required. Its not like A-Eon is delivering system without FPU. If there is a high demand for speed we will see recompiled old software or if not it will work under emulation. This is also valid for new software. For 3D games right approuch is to use possibilities of modern GFX cards over PCIe bus. Only that approuch will produce excellent results....not FPU.

At least this is how I think.....

I think the issue is overblown. FPU's aren't useful for most regular computing, and even then, emulating instructions shouldn't be a big deal if done right.

I guess we'll find out once the NDA's are lifted, since no one is allowed to talk about AmigaOS on the A1222 at the moment. I don't know why they have NDA's for such a niche platform...I guess it makes the 4 people that are beta testing it feel important, when they can keep secrets from the 7 people that are planning on buying it :lol:

[dooz]

What is the reason for going with the P1022 which has the E500v2 core in the first place, just price?  Is it that big of a deal to switch to one of the other QorIQ chips with the E500mc core or just too expensive which would negate the low price target of this board?

If you want e500mc core than you must go to quad core P3041 or P2040. There are no dual core e500mc CPUs. Another "advantage" of P1022 is that it has integrated sound card into the SoC. Otherwise you have to add PCIe slots on the board or integrate sound chip on the motherboard which will result with more complexity and development cost of the board. If you add PCIe slots then you cannot have mini-ITX format of the motherboard any more.

All above can increase cost of the board and then it will not be "low cost" any more. There are for sure other factors that will influence the cost that we do not know about. If I remember correctly the mentioned price for motherboard was 400 EUR.

Only the price change for CPU from P1022 to P3041 will cost more than 100 EUR more for the motherboard itself without anything else.

P1022 = 1000 @ US$54.29 each

P3041 = 1000 @ US$181.70 each

And all of this because of problem that we still do not know if will affect performance in a real world applications. In fact P1022 have double precision FPU integrated. In this kind of "low cost" product everything counts! Maybe next mid level cost product will have more powerful CPU.

Unfortunately "T" series of CPUs was not available for delivery at the time when design was started.

-Dooz

[dooz]

Thanks that does explain things a bit better, I didn't know about the integrated audio codec.  The P2040 at 1.2GHz is about double the price around $125 plus they would have to do something about audio, pushing up the final price up at least another 100.

We'll see how the performance and compatibility are when the NDA is lifted.

I investigated how much will *really* cost to buy those CPUs in high volume:

P1022 @ 1.2 GHz ($88.30)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p1022nse2mhb/nxp-semiconductors

P2041 @ 1.5 GHz ($214.06)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p2041nsn7pnc/nxp-semiconductors

P2041 @ 1.2 GHz ($182.22)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p2041nsn7mmc/nxp-semiconductors

P3041 @ 1.5 GHz ($256.03)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p3041nse7pnc/nxp-semiconductors

Yes, obviously it is not possible to have $182 CPU in 400 EUR A1222. Maybe a little bit cheaper if you order 1000 units but those are approx. prices. As a user I understand that some people would like something like P3041 @ 1.5 GHz but that is not possible for A1222 type of price range in a given moment when A1222 was designed.

-Dooz

[dooz]

I'm not disagreeing with you but I was referring to this P2040 here at $126 for 60.  It could be the wrong package type or any other thing wrong plus the lack of audio as mentioned.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/nxp-usa-inc/P2040NSE7HLC/P2040NSE7HLC-ND/5155398

Yes of course, there are many suppliers and price can vary. But you cannot use cheaper P2040 because it does not have any network (NIC) integrated into the SoC. Also it does not have L2 cache. You must use 2041 and it is more expensive then because you are getting then bunch of NIC integrated ;-) That is why some CPU QorIQ models are sometimes expensive.

Complete Pxxx series is problematic for desktop and only few CPU models can somehow fit in our desktop use.....and not without compromises.

Interesting is also that in fact P1022 is the only representative in complete "P" series that have sound and gfx integrated into the SoC. And all that for the low price tag and a very good performance which is comparable to G3 at 1.3 GHz raw CPU power. The compromise for P1022 was non-standard integrated FPU for which we will see if that is a problem in the future. If that is not a problem then this P1022 is perfect choice since "T" series was not ready at the time when A1222 was designed.

-Dooz

[dooz]

So will a Tabor outperform a 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 that costs a quarter of the price?

No - it will not. At least not in pure CPU crunching. I published dnetc OGR-NG benchmark on this link:

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=41954&forum=33#799349

SAM460EX 1.1 GHz: 11,708,929 nodes/sec
A1222 1.2 GHz: 13,837,837 nodes/sec
Mac mini G4 1.5 GHz: 14,881,017 nodes/sec

Those are OGR-NG numbers that do not use Altivec present in G4. Disapointing is how despite bigger L1/L2 caches and 300 MHz faster clock G4 can score only about 1000 nodes/sec more against A1222. A1222 is a real winner here and SAM460 is not very far.

In real world applications A1222 is probably faster then the fastest Mac mini G4 at 1.5 GHz. Probably faster FSB and memory is doing some good to A1222 performance. Not to mention what GFX performance will show in a real world. Also P1022 CPU is dual core which is still not exploited on OS4/MorphOS.

Now I must find some FPU benchmark under Linux on A1222 ;-) Any suggestions from anyone what I can use?

-Dooz

[dooz]

Yep.

This is excellent news! Do you have any other details about it? When will be available?

-Dooz